Having a Wonderful Time in Miami

By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN

Published: October 25, 1990

COCONUT GROVE, Fla.—
LIKE an overgrown Venus flytrap, the village of Coconut Grove seems to engulf its houses. Here, along the Entrada Inlet that leads from Biscayne Bay, the landscape is a moist thicket of banyans, palms and royal poincianas, a haven for land crabs and the occasional parrot.

The languorous waters of the inlet, which forms the backyard of one of Miami's oldest neighborhoods, are home to pompano, ray and other underwater creatures. So it is only fitting that when visitors approach the new house designed by Laurinda Spear and Bernardo Fort-Brescia for themselves and their five children, they encounter a front door with snappers etched into its glass.

Images of the tropics have figured prominently in the work of Arquitectonica, the Miami architectural firm founded by Ms. Spear, Mr. Fort-Brescia and three friends in 1977. Ms. Spear, a 39-year-old third-generation Miamian, and Mr. Fort-Brescia, 38, who was born in Peru, have specialized in an idiosyncratic architectural style some have called "romantic modernism."

Their "Pink House" in Miami, designed for Ms. Spear's parents, became an instant architectural icon of the early 80's, with its abstract spaces in surrealistic shades of pink. But times -- and clients -- have changed.

"This is a family house, not a designer house," Mr. Fort-Brescia said of this first house that they have designed for themselves and their children, who are 8 months to 10 years old. There is not a trace of pink. Their primary consideration, Ms. Spear said, was, "We didn't want anyone to notice it."

Wishful thinking. Although the gray-green stucco walls blend with the tropical landscape, this three-story villa, marked by triangular and semicircular cantilevered "eyebrows," is hardly muy tipica.

And it's not every interior that features bathrooms with themes expressed in Florida postcard transferred to tiles, including a bathing-beauty bathroom that is a mop-able ode to Weekiwachee, a Gatorland tourist attraction.

The 4,300-square-foot, seven-bedroom house is a voyage through Florida, drawing on everything from the work of contemporary Mikasuki Indian craftsmen to indigenous folk art -- hibiscus painted on leather in triangular frames, for instance.

Resurrecting modern Florida arts and crafts, from the tasteful to the not-so, was "almost a duty," Mr. Fort-Brescia said. "One has to know history in order to turn the page."

This is not to say that Ms. Spear and Mr. Fort-Brescia, who are committed modernists, borrowed directly from Florida's architectural legacy. Heaven forfend! Unlike many houses in Miami, theirs does not derive from the frame vernacular houses of Key West, the Art Deco of Miami Beach or the Spanish Revival of Coral Gables.

Although the use of stucco and applied tile is very Miami, the plan of the abstract rectangular prism is reminiscent of Italian villas: the almost fortress-like facade seems to dance amid the treetops.

Both private and urban, the front is softened when the late afternoon sun catches the overhangs -- designed to look like little paintings -- and casts loopy shadows on the walls below.

The design, including shutters with cut-out fish and seashells in the back, is at least partly a response to the climate. The family can open the windows even when it's raining. For ventilation, the house was deliberately kept narrow.

"There's a myth about living in Florida," said Ms. Spear, who ought to know. She feels that expansive glass vistas are not feasible. "An open house is fine in theory," she said, "but in reality, it's just too hot."

As she spoke, she was standing in the kitchen in front of her Acme Juicerator, doing what so many busy women do -- pulverizing vegetables to make homemade baby food.

Unlike many architects, Ms. Spear and Mr. Fort-Brescia are not precious when designing for their family. More conspicuous than the living room's bright yellow chair by Oscar Niemeyer and the purple leather chairs by Gilbert Rohde are the trappings of children -- the copies of "Little Women" and "Caddie Woodlawn" on the Art Deco desk in an upstairs hallway, for instance, or the Arts and Crafts cabinet hidden by hanging puppets of Halloween ghosts.

Not every architect would let a backyard succumb to a Slip n' Slide's mucky ruin. But letting the house evolve (there were four children when they started designing it; the family moved in early this year) has been a luxury for the architects.

"In a house for a client, everything has to be complete," Mr. Fort-Brescia said. Ms. Spear added: "We enjoy having a process rather than a product."

There are three levels of living space, with the house set high enough on its foundation to meet legal requirements for buildings in a flood plain. One enters on the second floor, after passing by a ceramic address sign by Mary Grabill painted with conch shells, crabs, pelicans and the like. This floor, the more public one, contains the living room, dining room, breakfast room, kitchen and laundry room in an open plan informally divided by sliding doors and half-walls.

The ground floor, practically all playroom, appears to have been designed by Fisher-Price.

Materials were kept simple: bleached oak floors; a shell-stone fireplace; a cypress banister made by Pete Osceola, a Mikasuki craftsman; and a wavy staircase molding bought at the local Home Depot. (The budget, which they would not divulge, was "catch as catch can," Mr. Fort-Brescia said).

Ms. Spear's whimsical decorative spirit pervades the house. Offbeat Floridiana that the couple collected -- oil paintings of Cape Canaveral by Franz Josef Bollinger, historic lithographs of early explorers roasting snakes and alligators, a 1926 map of never-built Miami utopian communities ("Look at all these ideas!" Mr. Fort-Brescia exclaimed) -- are complemented by Ms. Spear's own designs. In the master bathroom, the glass shower stall is decorated with etched palms. The dining room table is made of Alexandria palm wood and purple heart wood, with inserts of tamarind and other tropical woods. The colorful living room rug, with red and orange fish, functions as an underfoot aquarium.

Other art and furniture, including a Russel Wright sofa covered in 50's boomerang fabric, were garnered not only from local craftsmen but estate sales, a Buick dealership and Ms. Spear's grandmother. The couple drew the line at Florida landscapes on velvet, to Ms. Spear's later regret. "Do you really want your children looking at velvet paintings?" she had asked herself. (She intends to buy the next one she finds.)

Upstairs is the private zone, with five bedrooms. One of the four baths is dedicated to tropical foliage, one to boats and fish, another to fauna and one to historic Miami. Befitting the land of the postcard, the couple commissioned John Hilardes, a North Carolina artist, to create bathroom tiles with transfers of Florida postcards, complete with tourists' scrawls. "Dear Sister," one says. "I wrote you a postcard months ago. Why didn't you answer?"

"This way," Mr. Fort-Brescia said, "they'll learn the history of where they live."

The couple's daughter and four sons have rooms decorated with Haitian paintings, Peruvian tapestries and Guatemalan huipils, while their parents' bedroom is devoted to the nether reaches of Florida folk art, including two scenes encased in bamboo frames painted olive and turquoise.

Eventually, Ms. Spear would like to plant a garden modeled on Florida in the 1950's, subverting the present vogue for bougainvillea with plants now shunned, like hibiscus, banana leaves and crotons. "They're so ugly," she said dreamily of the crotons.

In the meantime, quartzite terrace steps glitter in the sun like a sequined Miami Beach bikini beside a house as fervently rooted in the region as the Villa Vizcaya or Mar-a-Lago.

"What we're trying to say is that there is a Florida," Mr. Fort-Brescia said with his tropical chutzpah. "And if there isn't, we're going to create one."

Photos: Three-story villa by two founders of the Miami firm Arquitectonica has walls of gray-green stucco, with triangular and semicircular cantilevered "eyebrows." Above, old postcard of Miami translated into ceramic tile for a bath. (pg. C1); The Miami architects Laurinda Spear and Bernardo Fort-Brescia in the back of the house they designed. It has geometric overhangs and shutters with fish and seashells.; Palms outside the living room, a rainbow inside: a yellow chair by Oscar Niemeyer, purple chairs by Gilbert Rohde and an underfoot aquarium: a rug with red and orange fish.; A bathing-beauty postcard, transferred to tile and painted by John Hilardes, a North Carolina artist, in a bathroom.; Snappers on the front door; conch shells, crabs and pelicans on the address sign.; A floor cloth in the kitchen has purple palms, yellow starfish and other designs. (pg. C6) (Photographs by Alan S. Weiner for The New York Times)